ON THE PLATES After everyone shared whitefish guacamole ($14) and a few glasses of Mezcalita de Piña, a pineapple-infused mescal drink ($12 each), Mr. Rampersaud and the younger Mr. Katz split the lobster tacos ($17 and not on the Passover menu) while Ms. Katz had a bowl of the epazote- and jalapeño-scented matzo ball soup ($10). Next: the braised beef short ribs with matzo ball-potato croquettes and chile ancho salsa ($26) for everyone except Michael Katz. He chose another à la carte offering that wasn’t quite kosher, let alone kosher for Passover: the suckling pig carnitas ($26).

Lobster tacos and pig carnitas: ay, caramba! Those dishes aside--and ever on the lookout for ways to add zest to traditional Passover fare--it all sounds like something I might be willing to whip up at home.

Canada is "the North Korea of environmental law," opined the land's queen of green, a statement she stands by despite the frenzy that erupted in its wake.That may or may not mean that, as Lizzie sees it, Stephen Harper is Kim Jong Un with a better haircut. It does, however, mean that Elizabeth May is the North Korea of Canadian political leaders--cranky, weird and more than a little bit nutty.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

A gay men’s website in Toronto lists a washroom at Ryerson University as the city’s most popular place to meet and have sex. The obvious reason for its popularity is the location near Toronto’s Gay Village. Some students say it makes them feel unsafe, because non-students are regularly inside campus washrooms. Ryerson Security says they don’t see it as a big problem, nor do they patrol washrooms. Sheldon Levy, the usually happy-to-comment president of Ryerson declined to comment. I can see why.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's state
prosecutors issued an arrest warrant Saturday for a popular television satirist
for allegedly insulting Islam and the country's president, in the latest legal
action to take aim at a critic of the nation's Islamist leader.

The warrant against Bassem
Youssef is also the latest in a series of legal actions against the
comedian, who has come to be known as Egypt's Jon
Stewart. Youssef's widely-watched weekly show, "ElBernameg" or The Program,
has become a platform for lampooning the government, opposition, media and
clerics.

The fast-paced show has
attracted a wide viewership, but has also earned itself its fair share of
detractors. Youssef has been a frequent target of lawsuits, most of them brought
by Islamist lawyers who have accused him of "corrupting morals" or violating
"religious principles."...

Go figure--the same thing happens to wisenheimers in Canada (except here it happens, comically enough, in the name of protecting "victims" and upholding their "human rights").

Andrew McCarthy says the apology brokered by "friend" Obama has opened the floodgates of an endless gush of one-way mea culpas:

More often than not these last five years, Israel’s prime minister has felt President Obama’s heel on the back of his neck. In stark contrast, Turkey’s prime minister has enjoyed Obama’s warm embrace. In Ankara, Erdogan hosts the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah as foreign dignitaries. He accuses Israel of turning Gaza into a “concentration camp.” Only days before Netanyahu’s coerced apology, Erdogan — whose history of anti-Semitism is infamous — publicly pronounced that Zionism is a “crime against humanity.”

This heinous accusation, “crime against humanity,” has become something of a verbal tic with Erdogan. He cavalierly applies it to Israel’s self-defense from thousands of jihadist rockets fired into its territory, and to the suggestion by European governments that the millions of Muslims who’ve immigrated to the West ought to assimilate into their new societies. Nevertheless, Obama openly regards Erdogan as one of his most trusted partners on the world stage. “The bottom line is that we find ourselves in frequent agreement upon a wide range of issues,” said Obama of Erdogan in March 2012, upon seeking him out at a South Korea summit for advice on the crisis in Syria, the tumult in Egypt, the nukes in Iran — even the challenges of raising daughters.

With Obama on the phone egging him on, Netanyahu abased himself. Not only did he apologize to Turkey, he further capitulated to Erdogan’s demand that Israel pay compensation to the Mavi Marmara “victims.” After the apology, Erdogan briefed his Hamas confederates and announced he would be visiting them in Gaza next month. Predictably, he has since announced that Netanyahu’s humiliating act of contrition will not be sufficient to restore diplomatic relations between the two nations. Just as predictably, other Islamic states are now preparing demands for apologies and compensation for sundry exercises of Israeli self-defense against jihadist terror...

Ottawa – When All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus on 31 March and the streets of the ancient city ring with a message of peace and hope, there will be nothing unusual about it. Easter processions are a tradition in this predominantly Muslim country.

The All Saints Church marks its 130th anniversary, at the same time that Al-Rashid Mosque in Edmonton, Canada turns 75. The two institutions share more than an important anniversary year, celebrations will focus on the role these institutions have played in nurturing the religious and spiritual needs of their respective communities. And somewhat obscured yet more relevant in the current climate of religious distrust is the desire of the founders of these institutions to reach out to other communities.

Rather than projecting their unique identities as Christian and Muslim places of worship, both All Saints Church and Al-Rashid blend in with the local landscape, signalling that they respect religious pluralism and want to engage with other faith groups.

Amid magnificent places of worship like St. Anthony’s Church in Lahore and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Karachi, All Saints Church in Peshawar cuts a different profile— so different, indeed, that it is not unusual for Muslims to turn up here for their congregational prayers. Churches built in Pakistan during the British Raj typically highlight the European heritage of their colonial builders. But All Saints Church stands apart for its neighbourliness. Nestled inside the walled city, this serene white structure has domes and minarets like a mosque and a minbar, or wooden high chair, which is a common fixture in mosques that imams sit upon during the sermon. Utilising these local architectural motifs, All Saints Church highlights Christianity as integral to Pakistan beyond its colonial legacy.

In conclusion,

Canadians’ respect for freedom of religion resonates with Islam. And when the congregation of All Saints Church winds through the narrow streets of Peshawar singing the message of peace next Sunday, people of faith everywhere will be singing with them.

Makes one feel all warm 'n' cozy, no? Given Peshawar's peaceableness, I guess this is an anomaly:

LAHORE, Pakistan – Hundreds of people in eastern Pakistan rampaged through a Christian neighborhood Saturday, torching dozens of homes after hearing reports that a Christian man had committed blasphemy against Islam’s prophet.

Blasphemy is a serious crime in Pakistan that can carry the death penalty but sometimes outraged residents exact their own retribution for perceived insults of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Pakistan is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim and people of other faiths, including the nation’s small Christian community, are often viewed with suspicion.

The incident started Friday when a young Muslim man accused a Christian man of committing blasphemy by making offensive comments about the prophet, according to Multan Khan, a senior police officer in Lahore.

A large crowd from a nearby mosque went to the Christian man’s home on Friday night, said Khan. Police registered a blasphemy case against the man after the crowd gathered and demanded action, the officer said.

Fearing for their safety, hundreds of Christian families fled the area overnight...

I think these Christians need to build one of those more "neighbourly," non-Imperialistic churches that resembles a mosque--you know, like they have in Peshawar.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Back in the day, the book Black Like Me recounted a white guy's experience of being black for a spell. Over in Denmark (which, back in the Nazis' day, stepped up and saved all its Jews), Danish journalist Martin Krasnik, who's Jewish but not visibly so, describes what it was like to dress up a la Juif and walk along Copenhagen's main drag:

Krasnik set out to walk two kilometers down Nørrebrogade, through a neighborhood he used to call home, in the city in which he was born and raised, wearing a yarmulke. The discomfort began quickly. “The first Arab guys I talked to happened to be in a very infamous, violent gang” that controls a large chunk of the drug trade in Nørrebro. Krasnik asked them what they thought would happen to him if he were to continue walking through the neighborhood wearing a kippah. “I mean, you’re Jewish,” one said to him. “But how can we know that you’re not Israeli?” If you’re an Israeli, Krasnik was told, “we have a right to kick your ass.”

Not being an Israeli—Krasnik specified that he was, in fact, a Danish Jew—he escaped without a beating. It was an inauspicious start, but he forged ahead and was soon confronted by another group of young immigrants. “Some young people, boys, started to shout ‘are you Jewish?’ and were giving me the finger,” he recalled. “One of the younger guys, a Somali, came over and asked me, ‘Are you Jewish?’ I said, ‘Yes of course.’ And he ran back to the group and said, ‘Go to hell, Jew.’” No one tried to hit Krasnik—it was early afternoon, and the street was bustling—but the journalist had the feeling that physical violence loomed.

“I started to feel … unpleasant,” he told me. “I thought: If I keep doing this for an hour or two, something will happen. And if I did this everyday, I would get my ass kicked around.”

On the final leg of his 2-kilometer walk, he approached a small grocery store, where five or six young men—“probably 25 years old, of Pakistani or Palestinian background”—were loitering outside. They too quickly spotted his yarmulke. “They stopped me immediately and asked, ‘Are you Jewish?’ And when I said yes, they said ‘Take that [kippah] off.’ One was shouting from behind, ‘You’re from Israel!’ I said, ‘No, I’m from Denmark and I live just down the road.’ ”...

Cut to the chase: fat lot of difference that makes in a city riddled with Zionhass.

WINNIPEG — Despite complaints from some quarters, Holocaust education remains an important focal point of the still-in-development Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

According to an internal working document released recently to the media by the museum’s board, a display on the Holocaust will fill a 4,500-square-foot space, making it the facility’s largest stand-alone gallery after its Canada’s Journey gallery.

As outlined in the working document, the Examining the Holocaust gallery is intended to be a case study in the “systematic destruction of human rights.”

“The lessons of the Holocaust demand that we be vigilant,” the working paper states.

The gallery will feature photos and graphic panels, videos, text and small, open drawers containing “fragile or secret documents.” Among the exhibits will be an overview of Lemkin’s Techniques of Genocide, a touch-screen panel that explains eight “techniques” that the Nazis used to try to destroy the Jewish People.

The outer structure of the $350-million-plus museum was completed late last year. The museum is expected to open to the public in 2014.

Don't worry, though. Other victim groups will still get to tell their "stories":

Canada’s Journey, the largest gallery at 9,500 square feet, will consider past historical wrongs such as the internment of Japanese people during World War II, the Chinese head tax, residential schools for native peoples and modern issues such as same-sex marriage and disability rights.

Other galleries include an aboriginal section, human rights today and taking action in defence of human right.

As for the Holodomor--it'll have to settle for second place in the victimhood sweepstakes, Avis to the Jews' Hertz, Pepsi to our Coke:

The Holodomor, the Soviet Union’s forced starvation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian farmers – estimates of the number of dead run from 1.8 to 12 million – in the 1930s, will be examined in a film that will be art of a gallery called Breaking the Silence.

The gallery would “recognize the role of Diaspora communities and Parliament in breaking the silence” on five genocides – the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the Holocaust and, more recently, Rwanda and Srebenica.

The status of the Holodomor relative to the Holocaust among the museum’s educational programs has been the main bone of contention from critics of the museum, and from one group in particular, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has been pushing for the Holodomor to be given equal space with the Holocaust in the museum.

“We have the support of most Ukrainain Canadian organizations, which are working with us,” said Maureen Fitzhenry, the museum’s media relations manager.

“They seem to understand what we are trying to do and appreciate our efforts to incorporate information about the Holodomor.”

Fitzhenry noted that the working document is not an exhaustive list of every component and story of every gallery...

Something tells me that that's not going to sit too well with Ukrainians, and that the Holocaust being given pride of place in the human wrongs edifice will engender more Judenhass, not less.Which rather defeats the whole purpose of the Asper-sponsored exercise, no? (BTW, pace the above-mentioned "working paper," the lessons of the Holocaust--if it's even appropriate to think of it in those terms--demand that we acknowledge that Jew-hate is eternal, and that in every era it morphs into something new. Today, for example, it manifests itself as an irrational obsession with/hatred of Israel--what I like to call Zionhass. How much square footage do you suppose the museum is planning to set aside for that?)Update: This paragraph from Gil Troy's book Moynihan's Moment seems apropos:

By 1975 the New Left had started betraying its defining ideals, especially regarding human rights. Traditional liberalism spread enlightenment by operating consistently, rationally, fairly. The totalitarian post-sixties leftism worshipped the god of identity, valorizing racial and colonial victimhood as proof of virtue. Who you were determined the justice you deserved. This hard Left became reactionary, often choosing positions to oppose the United States or Israel. Democracy seemed embattled, autocracy empowered: "There will be more campaigns. They will not abate." Moynihan warned, "for it is sensed in the world that democracy is in trouble. There is blood in the water and the sharks grow frenzied."

My take-away from that: a Canadian Museum for Democracy would have made a lot more sense--and been a whole lot more worthwhile.

The Community Security Trust has rejected an apology by Lord Ahmed for his “unacceptable” comments that suggested Jews controlled the media and British politics.

The Labour peer, who has been suspended from the party pending an investigation, had blamed Jews for his dangerous driving charge in 2009. He claimed a Jewish conspiracy was responsible for his imprisonment for causing a fatal car crash. The peer reportedly suggested a Jewish plot against him had followed his support for Palestinians in Gaza.

He was jailed for 12 weeks in 2009 after admitting sending text messages shortly before a motorway crash which killed another driver.

The peer reportedly said: “My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.”

Lord Ahmed made the offending comments during a television interview aired in Pakistan last April and obtained and published by The Times newspaper this month.
Now he has “completely and unreservedly” apologised for his comments in an interview with the Huffington Post.

He reportedly told the Huffington Post that he had “the greatest respect” for the Jewish community and apologised to Jewish Labour leader Ed Miliband for embarrassing the party. “He’s of the Jewish faith and I’m sorry that I embarrassed him, or anybody else in the Labour Party,” said Lord Ahmed.

“I’m not antisemitic or a conspiracy theorist. I only believe in facts and I should have stuck with the facts rather than with conspiracy theories.”...

Don't tell me, let me guess: some of his best friends are Jewish? (It's called Zionhass, BTW, your lordship. And you've got it bad.)Update: From the Beeb report:

The 55-year-old Pakistan-born businessman and Labour Party activist was
appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair in 1998. He was one of the first
three Muslim peers, (sic)

He was suspended and investigated by the Labour Party in 2012 after
allegations he had called for a £10m bounty for the capture of US Presidents
Barack Obama and George W Bush. He was subsequently cleared and reinstated.

Obviously (and ho ho ho), the House of Lords has no sanity clause.
﻿

FYI, that is not Lord Ahmed on the left (or the right, for that matter). It's just a couple of Joooos!

To learn more about social innovation and creating conditions to make it happen, check out the SiG Knowledge Hub.

They may have liked that short video from Social Innovation Generation. Me? I thought it sounded an awful lot like latter-day Marxism tarted up in eco-green fleece. And when I read the article by OTF program manager Arti Freeman, I found a nugget (which I've bolded) embedded in the bureaucratic gobbledygook:

This article explores the ways in which three different funders have supported social in- novation, with a particular focus on youth-led organizing.
• The first example, a collaborative between the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Laidlaw Foundation, Tides Canada Initiatives, and other partners, highlights how funders can help create environments for a community of practice to emerge.
• The second example, drawing from the evaluative learning of an inter-gov- ernmental group with funders from all sectors, illustrates the impact funding collaboratives can have on leveraging additional resources to the youth sector while promoting institutional change within different funding bodies.
• The third example, based on the experiences of a national project under- taken by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation as part of its inclusion strategy, highlights how adopting developmental evaluation practices can dramatically support innovation and learning.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Does Obama in fact know the relationship, for example, between “Passover” and “Christian blood” ..?!Or “Passover” and “Jewish blood rituals..?!Much of the chatter and gossip about historical Jewish blood rituals in Europe are real and not fake as they claim; the Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.

It’s not every day that Israel apologizes to a foreign power. Its apology to Turkey is even more significant because it came from Benjamin Netanyahu. For three years he had refused to concede Turkey’s three demands: an apology for killing nine people in international waters on a Turkish ship on a humanitarian voyage to Gaza; compensation to the families of the victims; and an easing of the Gaza blockade, the aim of the civilian flotilla.

He has done all three — under pressure from Barack Obama, whom he had clashed with and hoped to see defeated in last year’s election.

Making up with both Obama and Turkey is in Israel’s interest.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, no slouch in stubbornness, has welcomed the move, clearing the way for a resumption of bilateral relations.

The delay in mending fences was not all Netanyahu’s fault. There were greater forces at work.

The West is not used to dealing with a Muslim leader like Erdogan...

You might want to tone it down a bit, Harpoon. Your triumphalism is showing.

Since I can't stomach the New York Times these days (reading Thomas L. Friedman, but for comic value only, is about as much as I can manage), I missed the story of the fabulous Gaza baker boys:

The piece, slugged under the category of “Gaza Journal” with the headline “Ex-Prisoners Bring Taste of West Bank to Gaza,” concerns the activities of two Palestinians who were released from Israeli jails as part of the ransom deal in which kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit was freed. The pair opened a beachfront shop in which they sell a particular dessert that is associated with the West Bank city of Nablus, from which they have been exiled. The Times portrays the two as a couple of Horatio Alger-style strivers who are not only working hard but whose efforts illustrate the fact that Gazans no longer have easy access to the cuisine of Nablus because of Israeli restrictions. But anyone seeking to use this as either an illustration of Israeli perfidy or the pluck of the Palestinians needs to sift through most of the Times pastry puffery to the bottom of the piece to see why Nadu Abu Turki and Hamouda Sala were the guests of the Israeli prison service until their Hamas overlords sprung them: they were both convicted of planting bombs and conspiring to commit murder as members of Hamas terror cells.

The conceit of the piece is to show how plucky Palestinians have adapted to onerous Israeli measures that have prevented people in Gaza from consuming nabulsia, a variant of the kenafeh dessert popular in Nablus. This is a special hardship for those West Bankers whose terrorist activities have led to actions that stranded them in Gaza. So for the apparently not inconsiderable number of homesick bomb builders and snipers stuck in the strip, the two ex-prisoners’ bakery is a godsend.

Were the point of the article to show us how these terrorists have changed their ways and traded murder for pastry, it might have been a tale of redemption. But there is nothing of the sort in the piece. Instead, we are left with the impression that the two dessert-makers are merely biding their time selling nabulsia simply because their main occupation—trying to kill Jews—has been taken away from them by being deposited in Gaza.

If the February 5 murder attempt on Lars Hedegaard in Copenhagen didn’t make it clear what Europe’s Islam critics are up against, the aftermath of this monstrous crime has certainly done so. I’ve already written here about the morally challenged Ekstra Bladet journalists who, when Lars felt compelled to find a new place to live after the attempt on his life, followed his moving van in an obvious effort to be able to report his new address. Then there was Danish TV host Martin Krasnik, who in a March 17 interview with Lars played prosecutor, comparing Lars’s book on Islam, In the House of War, to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and trying to paint him as a man whose purported extremism had isolated him even from his fellow Islam critics.

Krasnik got a lot of heat for that sleazy display. Now comes another Danish journalist, Klaus Wivel, who has chosen to take this occasion not only to get in a few kicks at Lars but to smack around several of those (myself included) who have responded to Lars’s close shave with shows of solidarity.To be sure, Wivel, writing in Weekendavisen, admits that Islam is not a thoroughly innocuous phenomenon and that Krasnik acted like a thug. But the thrust of his article is that Lars and his friends and defenders have gone too far...

"Gone too far" is dhimmi-speak for "daring to criticize Islamic triumphalism." And make no mistake--the rot infests Canada, too (witness our Supreme Court's throwing free speech under the bus in the name of sparing peoples' precious feelings).

Richard Falk is not only a distinguished professor emeritus who writes anti-Israel articles. He's the UN's special rapporteur for the human rights of Palestinians, and, as he's proven again and again, he's one of those Jews--the kind who loathes Zion with all his eensy-weensy heart. It's no wonder, then, that onIsam reprints this vicious little screed in which the ratporteur calls Israel a "racist state."A pox on you and all you stand for, Dick.
﻿﻿

Dude really thinks it's a pleasure thing, and that if you make a condom that's more, um, sensitive, men worldwide will be more inclined to use it.Anyone else think that that's not going to make a diff?

Spoken by a man who gets what's at stake re free speech in general and in Canada in particular. To put it another way: political correctness (which, alas, has infected Canada's highest non-kangaroo court) is the death of free speech--and therefore of freedom itself.Update: Something else to consider: there's no free speech in Islam (and there are plenty of Muslims who like it that way, and who can see how easily sharia can ride in on the coattails of Western political correctness; call it a magic carpet ride, if you will).Update: Just heard an ad on the radio for this:

Remember that old nursery rhyme your parents used to tell you: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Sadly, it's wrong. "That's so gay," "faggot," "dyke" and "No homo" are some of the most common derogatory expressions used in schools today, but the least addressed by teachers.

For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, words have the power to shape their identities and possibilities for the future. Put simply: words can hurt or heal. But sometimes our silence speaks much louder than our words. It's time we stop the silence surrounding the daily expression of casual homophobia in our schools, families and communities.

Our institute at the University of Alberta is helping to break the long-held silence that surrounds sexual orientation and gender identity in our schools and communities. Through innovative projects such as NoHomophobes.com, Camp fYrefly and the Family Resilience Project, we are using the power of research to both educate people and inspire action for positive social change.

It's what's next in helping raise awareness and understanding of the struggles of sexual and gender minority youth among us, and empowering them to embrace their identities at school and home and in their communities. It’s work that has the ability to not only change lives, but also save them.

"Words can hurt or heal," eh? That's so Orwell. (Am I still allowed to say that in Canada?)

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Isn't it nice that one of the pair of giant pandas China sent us bears the name of the heinous dictator who is probably responsible for more deaths than any other leader in history? Couldn't they have sent us one with a different name?
﻿

Soviet-engineered, absolutist, and impervious to changing conditions, the Zionism-is-racism charge fused long-standing anti-Semitism with anti-Americanism, making it surprisingly potent in the post-1060s world, despite being a political chimera. In the Iliad, a Chimera is a grotesque animal jumble, "lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle." To make Israel as monstrous, Resolution 3379 grafted allegations of racism onto the national conflict between Palestinians and Israel. This ideological hodge-podge racialized the attack on Israel and stigmatized Zionism, for race had been established as the great Western sin and the most potent Third World accusation thanks to Nazism's defeat, America's Civil Rights' successes, the Third World's anti-colonial rebellions, and the world's backlash against South African apartheid.

Criminalizing Zionism turned David into Goliath, deeming Israel the Middle East's perpetual villain with the Palestinians the perennial victims. This great inversion culminated a process that began in 1967 with Israel's imposing Six Day War victory, followed by the Arab shift from conventional military tactics to guerilla and ideological warfare, especially after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Viewing Israel through a race-tinted magnifying lens exaggerated even minor flaws into seemingly major sins.

Case in point, a Palestinian who sits in Israel's Knesset as an elected member and head of an Arab political party who is coming to tell us about the lack of democracy/plethora of apartheid in Israel.Call me kooky, but I'm pretty sure that black political leaders in apartheid-era South Africa sat in jail, not in parliament (right, Nelson?). Also, how many Jewish elected officials who head up their own Jewish parties have a seat in say, Egypt's parliament, and do you think Egypt would allow such an individual (had he actually existed) to travel at will and spew falsehoods about Egypt?Rather puts things in perspective, no?

In October 2010, news broke about how the Campbell’s Soup company received an Islamic (halal) certification for some of its product line, and many were outraged. There was a legitimate concern – not with the fact that Campbell’s received the certification, but with what organization the certification came from, that being the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group co-founded by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian.

In 2007 and 2008, ISNA was named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. The defendants of the trials were the leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and HLF itself. In the end, each was found guilty of all charges.

There was good reason for ISNA being named. For years, since HLF was established in 1987 as the Occupied Land Fund (OLF), the group advertised its mailing address as the same one being used (to this day) by ISNA. ISNA’s main youth group, the Muslim Students Association (MSA), asked for donations to be sent to the address in OLF’s name.

This information, along with the backlash Campbell’s received, might have contributed to Campbell’s ending its association with ISNA and becoming the client of another halal group, the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA). However, Campbell’s may have acted too soon, as ISNA has now announced that it and IFANCA have forged an agreement to work together. As was posted this month on ISNA’s site, “ISNA has built an alliance with the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), the largest Halal certifying body in the U.S., for support in establishing the national Halal standards and accreditation body.”

But regardless of ISNA’s connection to IFANCA, IFANCA has major terror-related problems of its own...

The exact date the Campell's-ISNA story broke: October 5, 2010. I should know because I'm the one who broke it. After Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs picked it up and wrote about it, it because something of an Internet sensation; why, yours truly was even dissed on The Colbert Report, an occurrence of which I remain inordinately proud. Sad to see, though, that despite the exposure, Campell's continues its foxtrot with triumphalist Muslims.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Five people have been jailed in Britain for pretending to make a Hollywood movie in a scam to defraud tax authorities of millions of pounds.

The fraudsters were convicted earlier this month of attempting to bilk the government of $4.2 million in a plot reminiscent of the Academy Award-winning hit "Argo" -- but without that movie's heroic hostage rescue.

Prosecutors said the fraudsters claimed to be producing a made-in-Britain movie with unnamed A-list actors and a 19 million-pound budget. But officials say the project was a sham to claim back millions in taxes.

Bashar Al-Issa, described as the leader of the fraud, was jailed Monday for six and a half years. The others were sentenced to around four years each.

So let's recap: this scam involved a couple of fellows with Arab-sounding names; was not designed to rescue hostages who were otherwise facing certain death at the hands of krazed Khomeinists; and has yet to be made into a Hollywood movie directed by and starring Ben Affleck.But, yeah, other than that they're dead ringers.(I was amused by the name of the bogus film company--Evolved Pictures--and its fake film--A Landscape of Lies. Sounds to me like these scam artists had a wicked sense of humour.)

I don't know what it will take for mainstream Jewish leadership to realize that placing limits on free speech is a terrible idea. Followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini toting Hezbollah flags, calling Israel "a tumour" and shouting "Allahu Akbar" on the grounds of Queen's Park? An unnamed complainant accusing the B'nai Brith of "hate speech," resulting in years of investigation by one of Canada's many "human rights" bodies? How about the leader of the world's largest Arab nation calling Jews "apes and pigs," words he took directly from Islam's holy book?

Since all those things--and many more, including Israeli Apartheid Week and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid--have come to pass and Messers Fogel et al. are still convinced that clamping down on "hate speech" is the way to go, clearly, nothing will wake them up. As such, they remind me of another group of Jewish leaders, the ones who thought that "sha shtill" was the best way to protect Jewry while Hitler was on fire in Europe. It didn't work then, and it certainly won't work now. All it will do is give Jews a false sense of security as their enemies freely rail against them. And without the freedom to rail right back--what civil liberties pioneer Alan Borovoy, who regrets the role he and other Jews played in bringing state censorship to Canada, calls "effective invective"--Jewry and all of society will be severely, perhaps even fatally, hobbled.

Despite the latest Supreme Court ruling on the matter--in a nutshell, that free speech leads to hate speech, which can ultimately lead to genocide, a reductio ad absurdum if there ever was one--free speech did not cause the Holocaust. (To those who cling to the notion that it did, I would point out the painfully obvious: there was no free speech in Hitler's Germany.) And the sooner we Jews banish that nonsense from our brains and stop trying to silence domestic "Nazis" via the courts, the sooner we can focus on mobilizing against those Zion-loathers (the hatred of Zion being the latest manifestation of age-old Jew-hate) who do pose a genuine threat to us--and to our freedom--today.

By forcing Israel to apologize to Turkey, Obama effectively forced Israel to acknowledge that it is in the wrong for lawful actions by its military taken in defense of international law and of Israel’s national security. That is, Obama sided with the aggressor – Turkey – over the victim – Israel. And in so doing, he signaled, deliberately or inadvertently, to the rest of Israel’s neighbors that the US is no longer siding with Israel in regional disputes. As a consequence, they now feel that it is reasonable for them to press their advantage and demand further Israeli apologies for daring to defend itself from their aggression.

Whether or not Obama meant to send this message, this is a direct consequence of his visit.

Israel’s ability to live as if it were disconnected from the rest of the region is impressive and necessary. It’s also illusory and dangerous.

It’s impressive and necessary because Israel is the only country in the world today that has nonstate actors, armed with missiles, nested among civilians on four out of five of its borders: the Sinai, Gaza, southern Lebanon and Syria. Beyond them lies a hinterland of states consumed by internal turmoil, and Iran. Yet Israel has managed to juggle bits, bytes and bombs — with high walls that neutralize its enemies and high-tech that nourishes its economy.

But there is a fine line between keeping danger out and locking fantasy in, between keeping your people alive and keeping crazy dreams alive. Israel is close to crossing that line.

The only "crazy dreams" Israel wants to keep alive is the one which finds it continuing to exist in the face of intractable enemies and their Islam-based crazy dreams of wiping Israel off the map. And TLF, no sage he but ever the quintessence of cluelessness re matters Israeli is, yes, dreaming crazily if he thinks his two cents on the subject are worth even that much.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Stupid Justin TrudeauWants to run the whole show.Great for the Liberals, not thee.Stupid JT's the guyWho'll make all the folks sigh:"He'll like Obama 2, you'll see."Now I don't mean to worry youBut I'm in distress.Another Trudeau at the helmWould cause a huge mess.The first one had charisma,Brought "multicult'ralism,"And it's caused a schism.Stupid Justin Trudeau,Looks nice; empty you know.Got Maggie's looks and also brain.Stupid Justin TrudeauHe's raised a lot of dough.Let's hope it all goes down the drain...

So go figure, the NatPo ended up printing my letter. Here it is (scroll down to "Censorsing Ezra). And here's the one I posted yesterday, which I think you'll agree is better than the edited version:

I think Chris Selley lends far too much credence to Ontario's Attorney General's stated reason for not pursing a "hate speech" complaint against Ezra Levant--i.e. that it would turn into "a bit of a circus." The real reason why the nation's censors are reluctant to try to use state mechanism's to silence the likes of Levant and Mark Steyn (who, not by co-incidence, shoot from the right) is because they are too high-profile, too articulate and too damn mouthy. The censors tried to take them on--Levant by the Alberta "Human Rights" Commission; Steyn by the British Columbia "Human Rights" Tribunal--but learned to their dismay that instead of silencing them, the tables were turned and the human rights bodies themselves were made to look ridiculous.

No, censorship in Canada works far better when the people you want to stifle are nobodies from Nowheresville--the Whatcotts et all--who lack the wherewithal, both financial and intellectual, to defend themselves. And like all Star Chambers, it also functions better in the dark, where people cannot see its workings. Like him or loathe him, what Levant (and Steyn) did was shine the light of day on these ludicrous proceedings. Call it "a bit of a circus" if you'd like, but if it is, it is a Cirque du Soleil--a circus of sunshine.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Erdogan’s government has mastered the art of provocation and is being rewarded for it. The Israelis should not have apologized but should have demanded an apology from Ankara for its support of the terrorist-connected group that undertook this aggressive act.

For a start, mocking the Mormons and their bizarre belief system is the softest
of targets. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unlikely to
dispatch suicide bombers into the theatre, and indeed their response to the
piece has been remarkably tolerant and good humoured.

A Saudi prince jailed for life in Britain for murdering his servant has been flown back to the Middle Eastern country to serve the rest of his sentence, the British government said Wednesday.

Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, was jailed in 2010 for killing Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz in a London hotel after subjecting him to a 'sadistic' campaign of violence and sexual abuse.

But Britain's Ministry of Justice confirmed that the 36-year-old royal flew back to Saudi Arabia on Monday after he was granted a transfer to a prison in his homeland...

Who wants to bet that this Saudi royal will serve out his sentence in the lap of luxury?

AMMAN — Nezar’s face is tight with expectation as she arrives for the meeting. She is a heavy-set mother of 12 and as she arranges herself on the small sofa in Um Majed’s living room she removes her black veil and the pious black gloves that allow her to shake hands with men who are not her relatives.

Um Majed sets down small cups of hot Turkish coffee to ease the tension. Nezar is a Syrian refugee and looking for a husband for her daughter. She lists the girl’s qualities.

A Department of Homeland Security program intended to give "trusted traveler" status to low-risk airline passengers soon will be extended to Saudi travelers, opening the program to criticism for accommodating the country that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks...

Please Visit

Followers

About Me

Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.